Archive for the 'Public Schools' Tag Under 'Orange Punch' Category

Californians ought to be outraged that government-paid jobs, which is to say people on the public payroll who are paid with your tax money, take priority over helping the needy. But the needy don't elect many legislators.

Our friends up the freeway at that Los Angeles newspaper courageously have come out against asking "teachers to lie to" students about global warming.

We agree.

Teachers should stop repeating the Al Gore mantra that the world has a fever and that it's our fault.

Except, sadly, that's not what the L.A. Times meant.

The Times complains that students might be told there's another side to the allegedly settled science of global warming. The Times is worried that someone might actually hear that the science is not settled, and that what has been taught as gospel in public schools, bleated uncritically from mainstream news sources and repeated endlessly by those paid to say so is in fact 180 degrees from the truth.

The poor, poor public colleges. They may have less of your hard-earned tax money to spend, and their students might even have to pay a little bit more in tuition, rather than taxpayers picking up the whole enchilada.

Well, here's a tiny peek at what your tax money is paying for at the UC system, courtesy the City Journal's Heather MacDonald in a post headlined: "Less Academics, More Narcissim"(emphasis ours)

"Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time 'vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.' This position would augment UC San Diego's already massive diversity apparatus..."

"They devised a secretive, last-minute bill – part of the budget – that tells school districts that if their state funds are reduced because the budget's rosy revenue assumptions don't materialize, they must ignore the shortfall and continue to employ teachers as if they had the money in hand."

What exactly does that mean? It means if schools run out of money, they can't stop spending. As Walters notes, "The ban on layoffs testifies to the immense clout that the CTA wields among the Legislature's majority Democrats."

This special condition Americans have allowed for public employees - unionization along with civil service protection - was bound to crash and burn eventually. They can tell you that now in Wisconsin. Soon here too, I suspect.

So, was it all worth it?

On the one hand Wisconsin public school teachers were paid $75,587 in total average compensation, counting wages and benefits in 2010. You can compare it to your own pay and benefits and decide for yourself whether taxpayers paid too much, or too little.

Coupal notes that a college course called "Self Esteem" is taught at California State University, Fresno. UCLA students have a class on electronic dance music that explores "the political and cultural implications of the relentless hedonism of the dance floor." At UC Berkeley, there's a course entitled, "Sex Change City: Theorizing History in Genderqueer San Francisco" to learn about "the regulation of gender-variant practices in public space by San Francisco's Anglo-European elites."

The state faces a $19 billion budget deficit and the universities are whining that the state won't pony up more of your hard-earned money to underwrite their "educational" offerings.

Students at public colleges and universities have been asked to pay a greater share of the total cost of their educations, most of which is still borne by taxpayers, Coupal reminds us.

California students pay the lowest community college tuition rates in the nation, and taxpayers pay 60 percent to 70 percent of the cost for a Cal State or University of California education, Coupal reminds us.